female breeders, but the lyons woulde not goe out by any ordinary meanes that could be used, neither would they come neere the trap doore, untill they were forced out with burning linkes, and, when they were come downe into the walke, they were both amazed, and stood looking about them, and gazing up into the ayre; then was there two rackes of mutton throwne unto them, which they did presently eate; then was there a lusty live cocke cast unto them, which they presently killed and sucked his bloud; then was there another live cocke cast unto them, which they likewise killed, but sucked not his blood. After that the Kinge caused a live lambe to be easily let downe unto them by a rope, and, being come to the grounde, the lambe lay upon his knees, and both the lyons stoode in their former places, and only beheld the lamb, but presently the lambe rose up and went unto the lyons, who very gently looked uppon him and smelled on him without signe of any further hurt; then the lambe was very softly drawne up againe in as good plight as hee was let downe. Then they caused those lyons to be put into their denne, and another male lyon only to be put forth, and two lusty mastiffes, at a by doore to be let in to him, and they flew fiercely uppon him, and, perceiving the lyon's necke to be so defended with hayre they could not hurt him, sought onely to bite him by the face, and did so; then was there a third dogge let in, as fierce as the fiercest. One of them, a brended dogge, tooke the lyon by the face, and turned him uppon his backe; but the lyon spoyled them all; the best dogge died the next. day."

Another combat was exhibited on the 23rd June, 1609,

when King James, and all his family, with divers noblemen and many others, assembled in the Tower" to see a trial of the lyon's single valour, against a great fierce beare, who had killed a child that was negligently left in the beare-house;" yet neither "the great lyon," which was first "put forth," nor "divers other lyons," nor "the two young lustie lions, which were bred in that yard, and were now grown great," could be induced to fight, but all "sought the next way into their dennes, as soone as they espied the trap-doores open." A stone-horse, however, which had been turned into the same yard, would have been worried to death by six dogs, had not the King commanded the bear-wards to rescue him. About a fortnight afterwards, the bear was baited to death upon a stage, by the King's order; "and unto the mother of the murthered child was given twenty pounds, out of the money which the people gave to see the bear kil’d.”

It is not easy to imagine a more disgusting display, or a greater mockery of justice and charity, than this niggardly device of the King's for saving his own pocket, by the contributions of a collection of spectators of tastes as brutal as his own.

In 1758 George II. had so bad a fit of gout, being then seventy-five, that Lord Chesterfield wrote, "It was generally thought that H. M. would have died, and for a very good reason, for the oldest lion in the Tower-much about the King's age-died a fortnight ago! This extravagancy, I can assure you, was believed by many above the common people." So

* From Lord Stanhope's History of England.

"

difficult is it for human imagination to assign any bounds, however remote, to human credulity.

The Tower menagerie was so much in the way of the restorations of the entrance towers and gates, and appeared such an unnecessary appendage to the Royal Palace and Fortress, that in the year 1831 the Duke of Wellington obtained the King's leave to remove it altogether, and to clear away the unsightly dens and sheds with which the entrance was encumbered and disfigured.

*Not known who held office from this time until 1153.